Basking Shark

 The basking shark is the second largest fish in the world. These sharks can grow up to a length of ten meters, but, some of them have a body length of 11 to 13 meters too. An average adult basking shark can have a body weight of around 9000 pounds (4 tonnes). A distinct feature of these sharks is the five big gill slits on the either side of the head. The gill slits runs from the top to the bottom of the head. These gills have thousands of bristle-like gill rakers, that help them to filter the food floating in the water. These gill rakers are shed periodically.